Even Your Favorite Hero Struggles
By: Alyssa Aspiotis, Krystal Lang, and Allissa Patton
When you think about books with mental health representation, what genre usually comes to mind? Is it non-fiction books, memoirs, self-help books, or even sometimes romance novels? How often do we think of fantasy/sci-fi as part of this representation? Probably not as often as you think! Mental health representation is incredibly important in all aspects of literature, and we hope to shed some light on its importance in fantasy/sci-fi books in particular!
Why Does Representation Matter?
Mental health representation in fantasy/sci-fi books is incredibly important for promoting empathy, challenging negative stereotypes, and even broadening your own understanding of the subject. Here are some reasons why we think mental health representation is so important in fantasy books!
Challenging Stereotypes
Incorporating mental health representation in fantasy/sci-fi books can help challenge the negative stereotypes surrounding mental health. Stereotypes such as being violent, unpredictable, lazy, and even having a weak moral character are often challenged in these books. Showcasing heroes who simultaneously fight for their lives, advocate for their people, and defeat the villains WHILE internally battling mental health issues, challenges these stereotypes.
Providing Validation
As the title of this article suggests, even your favorite hero struggles! Reading fantasy/sci-fi books with powerful main characters and diverse experiences of various mental health issues can be incredibly validating. This allows everyone to realize that they’re not alone, and even their favorite main characters have similar struggles.
Promoting Empathy
Reading about various mental health issues in fantasy/sci-fi books can be a great way to promote understanding and build empathy. This allows readers to be able to sympathize with the main character, permitting them to deepen their understanding of others who experience similar mental health struggles.
Building Resilience
Some common themes, in fantasy books especially, are hope, resilience, and triumph over adversity. These themes can instill messages to readers such as a sense of optimism and perseverance over any adversity they are facing. This can be a powerful tool to learn when battling your own mental health challenges, as you strive to become the best person you can be.
Encouraging Dialogue
Reading about characters' experiences with various mental health issues can promote open and honest dialogue in your own life. Whether that is talking about what the specific characters went through, how this relates to your own mental health struggles, or even motivating you to do your own research, this all encourages regular talks about mental health!
Our Recommendations!
Here are three of our top favorite books that feature characters who experience different mental health struggles. All of these books bring visibility to these struggles (with care) throughout their stories, and we think these should be must-reads for everyone. We hope you find yourselves in one of these books, however that may look for you!
Alyssa’s Pick: Phantasma by Kaylie Smith
Phantasma, pitched as Caraval meets Throne of the Fallen, is a spicy dark romantasy novel. We follow our main character Ophelia who, along with her sister, discover their mother brutally murdered. Ophelia then inherits her mothers death-driven magic, along with the enormous debt on their house. Ophelia’s sister decides to pay off the loan by entering Phantasma, a cursed manor filled with demons, fatal temptations, and deadly competitions where most contestants don’t make it out alive. The only way for Ophelia to save her sister is to compete herself, and a mysterious, arrogant stranger claims he can protect and guide her through the challenges.
Throughout this book, Ophelia struggles with obsessions and compulsions, commonly known as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
This features a pattern of unwanted thoughts (obsessions), that lead to repetitive behaviours (compulsions). These compulsions are done to ease your stress, but the obsessive thoughts keep coming back, driving the vicious cycle of OCD. Ophelia struggles with something she calls the “shadow voice,” a voice in her head dictating her rituals she must complete or something catastrophic will happen. The “shadow voice,” the intrusive thoughts, and compulsions are all shown throughout the book, from the beginning all the way to the end, with care. It really shows how OCD affects all aspects of our life, and doesn’t just go away after a period of time.
As someone who struggles with OCD and anxiety, I can confidently say that Kaylie Smith did a wonderful job showcasing Ophelia’s struggles consistently throughout the book. I saw myself in Ophelia, and I think this book adds so much to the fantasy genre. If you also struggle with OCD and anxiety, you’re not alone, and you should 100% add this book to your TBR!
Allissa’s Pick: The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi
The Final Strife is a West African and Arabian-inspired fantasy series set in a world based on a harsh and brutal caste system based on the color of one’s blood. The red-blooded “Embers” make up the rigid ruling class, the blue-blooded “Dusters” are forced to be laborers for the empire, and the clear-blooded “Ghostings” are ostracized, mutilated, and are seen as less-than-human. The story follows three characters, Sylah, Anoor, and Hassa, who challenge the oppressive empire and uncover truths those in charge meant to keep buried.
Sylah, one of the three main characters in the series, is a former revolutionary who is an Ember, but has been disguising herself as a Duster.
During the revolution, Sylah was trained to be the leader of a new age in which the Embers no longer held power, but when her friends and comrades were killed and the revolution failed, Sylah fell into a deep depression. Within The Ending Fire trilogy, we see Sylah battle an addiction to “joba seeds” - a powerfully addictive substance that numbs Sylah’s despair and pain connected to her memories of failure. While the seeds give her temporary relief, they distract Sylah from her true destiny, and represent her inner conflict with her search for purpose.
What I appreciate most about Sylah’s experience across the trilogy, is that Saara El-Arifi does not shy away from Sylah’s ongoing battle with her addiction and the ways in which Sylah is able to fight the symptoms when she makes the decision to withdraw from the seeds. The series highlights that though Sylah is a tough and strong character, she has just begun her life-long journey of recovery from the seeds, in addition to her mental health journey of renewing her purpose by assisting her friends in dismantling the empire.
Krystal’s Pick: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Piranesi takes place in a mysterious labyrinth “House” with infinite halls filled with statues, highly intelligent birds, and an everflowing sentient ocean. Our main character Piranesi’s memory begins and ends in this labyrinth, and the way he understands his world and existence is bound to its confines. He lives a life mostly in solitude, except for the brief visits from a man called “The Other”. Piranesi is an expert when it comes to everything within his home, and seeks to understand even more and expand his “Great and Secret Knowledge.” He records his findings in his journals, and annotates and organizes them in a very particular way that is influenced by his very specific perception of time and space.
As the story unfolds, you learn more about Piranesi and his life before his sacred “House,” and that his ways of being and thinking are a direct result of attempting to cope with his unique circumstances and things beyond his control. Piranesi suffers from dissociative amnesia. This is a dissociative disorder characterized by the inability to recall important personal information, often triggered by severe levels of stress or trauma. Piranesi remembers nothing beyond the halls of his “House” or the waves of the sea, down to not even remembering his own name. He only refers to himself as Piranesi because “The Other” calls him this, and he chooses to take him at his word.
Susanna Clarke, while shedding light on a myriad of themes that I won’t get into because we’re getting into spoiler territory, also shines light on the impact of solitude and the blurred line between peace and loneliness. Despite how little Piranesi knows about the world around him, and the world beyond it, he has an appreciation for the things he has access to. Piranesi also explores to what degree how little (or how much) information an individual is privy to, can impact them for better or for worse and shape their worldview and belief system.
Here’s to Mental Health Rep!
Now that you’ve got a few examples of fantasy/sci-fi books with mental health representation and the reasons why it can be so important to readers, we hope that this can lend to finding representation that’s important to you. Whether that’s being seen or understanding those around you more, mental health representation is such an important part of storytelling to encourage empathy and expand your worldview.
